JULY 20, 1998

Boullion signs for BAR

FRENCHMAN Jean Christophe Boullion has signed to be the test driver for British American Racing - as we predicted would happen in September of last year. The 28-year-old Frenchman was the European Formula 3000 Champion as long ago as 1994 and then joined the Williams team as its test driver. He did a few races for Sauber, replacing Karl Wendlinger but then went back to testing for Williams until the end of last season.

His inclusion in the BAR line-up is not surprising given his experience as a development driver but it suggests that he has been offered a better deal - presumably involving racing - at some point in the future. At the same time it is hard to imagine that an outfit like BAR is going to put a virtually unknown French driver into one of its two available seats when the team has no shortage of money, and drivers such as Jacques Villeneuve and Damon Hill are on the market.

The only logical conclusion for Boullion's switch, therefore, is that he is a link to the engineers at Renault Sport, with whom he worked throughout the Williams period and that these same people will be involved with the yet-to-be-announced new Supertec V10 engines next year.